Ericka (any pronouns) is a Filipinx-Canadian inter-disciplinary performer and creator. Intertwining playwriting, movement, poetry, rhythm, and embodied sound, Ericka aims to expand the ways we connect, hold, and care for one another.

Selected theatre credits include: Italian Mime Suicide (dir. Adam Paolozza & Kari Pederson), TomorrowLove (dir. Christopher Stanton), Elektra (dir. Richard Greenblatt), Through The Bamboo (dir. by Nina Lee Aquino), Odd Ones Out (dir. Herbie Barnes).

Anthony is a Dora-nominated Toronto based Filipino-Canadian performer and stoked to perform with the wonderful and fun cast Princess Frownsalot. His selected acting credits include Koyo/Kapre in Through the Bamboo (Fringe), Eli in Eraser (Riser Festival) and Jorge in Theory (Tarragon). Selected film credits include CBC’s Workin Moms and Save Me. His directing credits include An Utterly Stupid Indefensible Thing (Fringe), The Brothers Gentle (Fringe), Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (Wolf Manor) and Posthumous Friends (inspiraTO). He received training as a Factory Theatre Mechanical, graduated with a BFA from Ryerson Theatre School and received the Perry Schneiderman comedy award.

With a string of firsts in Asian Canadian theatre, Nina was the founding Artistic Director of fu-GEN Asian Canadian theatre company, organized the first Asian Canadian theatre conference, edited the first (2-volume) Asian Canadian play anthology, and co-edited the first (award-winning) book on Asian Canadian theatre. She was previously the Artistic Director of Cahoots Theatre and Factory Theatre and is now the Artistic Director of English Theatre at the National Arts Centre. Awards for her work include the Ken McDougall Award 2004, the Canada Council John Hirsch Prize 2008, the 2018/19 Toronto Theatre Critics Award for Best Director, the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Margo Bindhart and Rita Davies Cultural Leadership Award, and three Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Outstanding Direction.

MARIE BEATH BADIAN Playwright Bio – Blyth Marie Beath is thrilled to be returning to the Blyth Festival. Her relationship with the festival spans over twenty years, including directing The Young Company, directing Reverend Jonah and writing and premiering Prairie Nurse. Marie Beath Badian is an award-winning, Filipino-Canadian writer and playwright based in T’karonto [Toronto, Ontario, Canada]. Recently, The Waltz was named The Globe and Mail’s Critic’s Pick and included in its Top Ten Toronto Productions of 2022. Her play Common: A Trilogy is the 2022 Recipient of The Playwright Guild of Canada’s Tom Hendry Award for New Drama. She was co-nominated along with Romeo Candido for a 2022 Canadian Screen Award for Best Writing/Web-series for Topline on CBC Gem. Her other plays include The Waltz, Prairie Nurse, The Best Friend Blanket Fort Show, The Making of St. Jerome, Mind Over Matter, and Novena. Marie Beath is a two-time alumnus of The Banff Playwrights Lab. She has developed work in the playwright units of Cahoots Theatre Company, Tarragon Theatre, Soulpepper Playwrights Circle and The Factory Theatre. She was the Playwright-in-Residence at fu-GEN Asian-Canadian Theatre Company, Project:Humanity and The Blyth Festival. Her plays Prairie Nurse and The Waltz are part of a multi-generational trilogy spanning fifty-years, set in rural Saskatchewan. The third play, The Cottage Guest, is in development. All three are commissioned by The Blyth Festival. www.mariebeath.comFor more about Marie Beath visit www.mariebeath.com

Jackie has worked as a set and costume designer for over 200 productions and her work can been seen across Canada and internationally. Selected theatre design credits include: Sexy Laundry, The Hours That Remain (Theatre Aquarius) Annie Mae’s Movement, Almighty Voice and His Wife, Tombs of the Vanishing Indian, From Thine Eyes, HUFF (NEPA), Antigone Insurgency (One Little Goat), Romeo and Juliet (TD Dream in High Park/Can Stage), Zadie’s Shoes, Lady Sunrise (Factory Theatre), Brown Balls (Fu-Gen), Fish Eyes Trilogy (GCTC), Cannibal the Musical(Starvox Entertainment), Twist Your Dickens (Second City Chicago/Toronto), Moment, Dissidents, Oi, Gloria (ARC Theatre), Cowboy Versus Samurai, 39 Steps, Oraltorio (Soulpepper) and The Komagata Maru Incident (Stratford Festival). Jackie was named in NOW magazine’s Top 10 Theatre Artists of 2009, nominated for the Virginia and Myrtle Cooper Award in Costume Design, nominated for a Saskatoon Area Theatre (SAT) award, Winnipeg Theatre Award, 2 Broadway World awards and has received 8 Dora nominations for outstanding set and costume design. She is also teaching Theatrical Design at the University of Toronto.

Andrea Mapili is a Filipinx-Canadian choreographer, movement director and playwright based in Toronto. In 2017, she reinterpreted the choreography of Cassettes 100, a one hundred–person interarts piece at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts. In 2021, she took part in the digital presentation of Supermodel, an interarts piece responding to and interrogating the Asian-Canadian model minority myth. In addition to co-writing the play, Through the Bamboo, published in 2021 (Playwrights Canada Press), she was also the Movement Director and Assistant Director. Andrea is a Registered Somatic Movement Educator specializing in embodied communication and somatic awareness for health and wellness.

For Factory: 10 seasons from 2012-2022, most recently David Yee’s among men, You Can’t Get There From Here vol. 2, and David Yee’s acts of faith. Select other theatre: Marjorie Chan’s Year of the Cello (Theatre Passe Muraille), Marlie Barlizo’s Lucky (The Cultch), Ronnie Burkett’s Forget Me Not (Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes/Luminato), among others. Upcoming: Matthew Mackenzie and Mariya Khomutova’s First Metis Man of Odesa (Punctuate! Theatre national tour), Rachel Mutombo’s Vierge (Factory Theatre), Colleen Wagner’s Armadillos (Factory Theatre). Other: Matt was assistant director of the Kennedy Center’s New Play Dramaturgy Intensive from 2011-2014, and has taught or led workshops at the University of Toronto, University of Toronto Mississauga, Humber College, and Theatre Ontario. Matt is currently Manager of Government Relations at the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and is President of LMDA Canada.

Blyth Credits: The Drawer Boy (Assistant Stage Manager) The Berlin Blues and Ipperwash

Selected Credits: Orphan Song, Bunny, (Tarragon Theatre), The Fish Eyes Trilogy, Boys with Cars (Nightswimming), This, Flood Thereafter, (Canadian Stage Company), Dividing Lines, Madre, (Aluna Theatre), Public Servant, Weather the Weather, (Theatre Columbus / Common Boots), Gladstone Variations, Yichud (seclusion) (Convergence), The Silicone Diaries (Buddies in Bad Times), and 7 summers with Dream in High Park. Sandy is the great-grandson of Morley Plunkett of the almost forgotten WW1 Canadian Vaudeville Troupe, The Dumbells.

Selected Credits: among men (Factory Theatre); Lady Sunrise (Factory Theatre); Peter Pan (Bad Hats Theatre/Soulpepper Theatre); In the Abyss (Political Movement); Knives in Hens (Coal Mine Theatre); The Cave (The Cave Collective); Philosopher’s Wife (Paradigm Productions); Prairie Nurse (Factory Theatre/Thousand Islands Playhouse); Poison (Coal Mine Theatre); Salt-Water Moon (Factory Theatre, WhyNot Theatre, Mirvish); S H E E T S (Veritas Theatre); Late Night (ZoomerMedia, Theatre Brouhaha); Faust (Theatre by the Bay); Byhalia, Mississippi (Cue6 Productions).

Michelle is a lighting designer who works with dance, theatre, and opera companies across Canada. Selected designs: among men, Year of the Rat, acts of faith (Factory Theatre); The Doctors Dilemma, Sherlock Holmes and the Raven’s Curse (Shaw Festival); 9 to 5: The Musical (Capitol Theatre); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Our Town(Theatre Rusticle); Broken Tailbone (Nightswimming); RUR: A Torrent of Light, Shanawdihit (Tapestry Opera); Lilies(lemonTree Creations/Why Not). She has received eight Dora Awards, a SATAward, the 2008 Pauline McGibbon Award, and was a finalist for the 2021 Siminovitch Prize. She is on the Board of the Associated Designers of Canada.

Select credits: 5 seasons as the sound designer for Canadian Stage’s Shakespeare in the Park as well as designing the productions Venus in Fur, Liv Stein and Game of Love and Chance, creator and composer for the Last Donnelly Standing at Blyth in addition to designing productions of Mary’s Wedding,In the Wake of Wettlaufer, Truth be Told and The Drawer Boy. Lyon designed sound for clown duo Moro and Jasp with 9 to 5 and Stupefaction, Venus’ Daughter for Obsidian theatre, and Prairie Nurse, the Waltz  and You Can’t Get There From Here, Vol. 3 for Factory Theatre and the Gig at theatre Aquarius.